As we move into the general election campaign, with Mitt Romney facing Barack Obama in the presidential race, its important not to lose perspective on the very real differences between the two. That starts with the recognition that Obama has made some astonishingly ill-conceived decisions as president, and that Romney would never have done these things.

During a partys nominating process for president  of which I was a part on the Republican side in this cycle  candidates do everything they can to differentiate themselves from each other. As the candidates focus on these differences and the media plays up the resulting conflicts, you could almost get the impression that some of us would have preferred Obama to some of our fellow Republicans.

Please!

Not only do I prefer Romney over Obama, its not even close. This is not to say that every proposed policy of Romneys is exactly what I would propose. But in stepping back and looking at the big picture, you have to recognize that the next presidents task will be to fix enormous problems. You would want the new president, above all else, to be someone who would never have been so foolish as to make the decisions that a) created the problems; or b) made them worse.

Here are nine examples:

Mitt Romney would never have thrown $862 billion down a rat hole, claiming it to be economic stimulus that would keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent. Then, three years later when unemployment was still struggling to get back down below 8 percent, he would never be so brazen as to claim such a move had actually been successful.

Mitt Romney would never have signed ObamaCare into law. I know some think otherwise because the plan he implemented as governor of Massachusetts had some similar elements. But ObamaCare was sold to the public with blatantly dishonest numbers and hidden taxes, and rammed through Congress via a series of political giveaways that would embarrass the most shameless of con artists. Whatever your disagreements with the structure of MassCare, Romney would never have done any of that. And if an ObamaCare repeal reaches Romneys desk, he will sign it.

Mitt Romney would never have exploded the deficit to more than $1 trillion a year, then allowed his Treasury Secretary tell the chairman of the House Budget Committee, regarding plans to fix the problem, We dont have a definitive solution, but we know we dont like yours.

Mitt Romney would not be running around claiming that businesses need to pay more in taxes. He would not try to tell CEOs what to do with their cash reserves (although he could do so much more competently than Obama, since unlike the president he actually knows a lot about business), because he knows that is not the presidents job. He understands that businesses are the ones who create jobs, and the last thing we need when the economy is struggling to create jobs is to increase the tax burden on businesses.

Mitt Romney would not attack people for being successful. He would not encourage the middle class to resent successful people, but instead would encourage them to learn from those who have been successful, and to seek opportunities from them.

Mitt Romney would never have promised the Russians he would give them what they want on missile defense as soon as he didnt have to worry about those pesky voters anymore.

Mitt Romney would never have stonewalled efforts to make crucial energy supplies available to Americans, as Obama has done on everything from the Keystone XL pipeline to the opening of domestic oil supplies in offshore locations and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Mitt Romney would never have let Congress get away with not passing a budget at all for three years, while running up the nations credit card at unprecedented levels through a series of continuing resolutions that escape the light of public scrutiny.

Mitt Romney would never have blamed someone else for the continued impact of problems he was elected to fix  as Obama does endlessly.

This list could go on, but these nine are the some of the biggest things  and the big things matter most of all. Everyone involved with a primary campaign hopes their party will nominate the absolute perfect candidate, and when your guy doesnt make it (or for some of us like me, when you dont make it), you can fall into thinking that all is lost. There are actually people running around saying there is no difference between Romney and Obama.

People. Get a grip. The differences are huge. And it starts with understanding how many truly horrendous decisions Barack Obama has made since he took office, and recognizing that Mitt Romney is a man with solid experience and good judgment  and that he would never have made any of them.

That alone offers a compelling argument for sending President Obama an invitation  to the inauguration of Mitt Romney on January 20, 2013. I trust he will attend.

I suspect that it’s too early to say. But I hope that a few people are working behind the scenes to come up with a name we can unite behind when the time is ripe.

Getting all the different kinds of conservatives together behind one candidate is kind of like herding cats, but if the GOP is determined to commit suicide, as seems likely, then I’m still hoping it can be done.

“FR has moved from a Conservative site to a let’s help re-elect Obama site by having trolls and idiots attacking his opponent every chance they get.
That is a sad reality of FR 2012.”

This seems to be the only arrow in the quiver of Romney’s outraged supporters, since we have seen it repeated ad infinitum here, so let’s address it and hopefully put it to bed.
He really did believe what he was saying, what his close advisers were saying and what his supporters here have been counting upon: that conservatives would get in line once the primary dust settled. That’s how mistaken you all are.
Without the use of pejoratives, so we won’t have to endure the embarrassment of listening to the whining that I’m being mean ....
Another way this has been put is, “Why—if you don’t vote for Mitt, you’re voting for Obama!”
Same-same.

No. This is an informal logical fallacy—a popular one because it allows the person using it to frame the argument. For example, Obama liked to say, “If you don’t sign on with my plan (usually involving the spending and transfer of billions of dollars from one group of Americans to another) then you are supporting doing nothing. Doing nothing is not a choice.”
To the contrary, “doing nothing” `earned’ Obama a Nobel peace prize within two weeks of his coronation.
So saying not supporting Romney is supporting Obama is simply mistaken. It’s called a `false choice’ or `false dilemma.
On the other hand, if I wanted to put a stick in the spokes of those (I’m supposing they are from the GOP) who like to play rough—until they get dinged—then whine about the importance of playing fair .... voting for Obama would mean going in and pushing the space next to his name. Supporting Obama would be doing all the things that we did to try and get a conservative candidate on the slate, thwarted at every turn by Romney and the GOP.
You folks have made your bed. Don’t expect us to get in with you.
Finally, let me notch my own arrow: ad baculum, or `arguing to the stick’. FR’s owner doesn’t like liberals, of whatever stripe—skunks, polecats or muskrats.
Put that in your pipes and smoke it.

Romney has already let the cat out of the bag through an accidental surrogate, Pam Bondi, that he intends to establish a national health care task force to provide “good” health care to all US citizens (er, residents) via implementing his brand of compulsory health insurance plans in all 50 states at the state level. He and she agree that this is constitutional and the “conservative” way to go. No way will Romney give up on RomneyCare. It’s here to stay and coming to a state near you.

We have several threads including video interviews and transcripts of Bondi spilling the beans and boasting about her being invited to serve on Romney’s National Health Care Task Force here:

They say that he is a capitalist, but the truth is Romney is a socialist at heart. The only capitalism he believes in is crony capitalism. Proof? He favors TARP, bailouts, stimulus spending, never ending increases in the national debt limit, compulsory heath insurance, etc. This is big government using corrupt crony capitalism to bypass free market capitalism to pick the winners and losers by government fiat and using government force and the fruits of our labor to do so.

As much as I've been on the "Not Voting For Romney, Rather Against obama" bandwagon, I have to say that the best the title of the article could read is "Nine horrendous Obama decisions Mitt Romney PROBABLY would never have made" and still be intellectually honest.

Saying definitively that Romney wouldn't have made such decisions, given his track record, is wishful thinking, at best.

61
posted on 04/30/2012 12:21:44 PM PDT
by Turbo Pig
(...to close with and destroy the enemy...)

As much as I've been on the "Not Voting For Romney, Rather Against obama" bandwagon, I have to say that the best the title of the article could read is "Nine horrendous Obama decisions Mitt Romney PROBABLY would never have made" and still be intellectually honest.

Saying definitively that Romney wouldn't have made such decisions, given his track record, is wishful thinking, at best.

63
posted on 04/30/2012 12:22:04 PM PDT
by Turbo Pig
(...to close with and destroy the enemy...)

Just a brief tutorial. Name calling is quite exact. The description of actions and thinking and the absence of profanity in describing actions and thinking is not adhomenim attacks, or name calling.

"When Clinton got elected I discovered that my life had changed NOT ONE IOTA"

However, Clinton wasn't pushing $8 per gallon gasoline, no more coal production, no more oil drilling on government owned land or off shore, trillion and a half deficits as far as the eye can see, confiscatory taxes on all job creators, cessation of criminal prosecutions based on skin color, killing US manned space flight and replacing it with Muslim outreach, giving guns to Mexican criminals, and more.

There is NO DOUBT that your life will change for the worse with four more years of Obama.

67
posted on 04/30/2012 12:39:07 PM PDT
by norwaypinesavage
(Galileo: In science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of one individual)

Cain is going the same way as many other Republican “leaders.” Party over principle. They know in their hearts that they’re in the wrong, just don’t want to lose their places in the party.

They want to claim the banners of the Reagan Revolution or the tea party rebellion but are unwilling to give up their places in the party power structure. They do not want to be seen as rebels against their own party, even if the party is leading us down the primrose path to destruction. Even Newt appears to be giving up his place in the “Republican Revolution” to now loyally holding for the company line, regardless of principle. Jim DeMint likewise. Even Palin is giving up some of her rogueness and is now surrendering to the corrupt crony capitalist bastards that she famously railed against just yesterday.

Not going to say they’re now RINOs and I still like them a lot, but I am mighty disappointed to see them cave so easily. Didn’t have much faith in Hannity resisting the big tent liberal/progressive march to totalitarianism, but will be greatly disappointed to see Rush and the Great One fold their tents in misguided party loyalty.

The fear of Obammunism has them all running scared.

To hell with that rubbish. Vote conservative. Elect as many Reagan/tea party conservatives into every local, state and federal offices as is humanly possible!! We keep the “leaderless” tea party rebellion going regardless of the backsliding Republican “leaders.” No one ever claimed that the tea party had to be loyal to the “GOP-e.” Hell, they’re the ones we’re rebelling against!!

The truth is Obama is a clown. A petty Marxist tyrant and useful idiot of the highest order. And we all know this. Even the other side knows this. They are now sadly recognizing that he is not their savior. Not the one they’ve been waiting for. I look for some of their leaders and congress critters to soon come to the realization that Obama must go. He should not be feared. He should be shamed, shunned and driven out of office like Nixon or impeached, tried and incarcerated.

We do not retreat, we reload!!

Here’s how we win as tea party rebels:

Turn out and vote straight conservative in November and in all future elections. Do not cave for the liberal RINOS.

Take control of local and state governments to free our people and demand a full restoration of the tenth amendment. Return the power to the states and the people. Build on our conservative majority in the house and retake the senate!

Don’t be afraid of the corrupt treasonous Obama. Fight the bastard! He’s now blatantly ignoring/bypassing the constitution and the congress and the will of the people on a daily basis. As each week and month passes, he now commits yet another horrendous act and another count that can be added to the articles of impeachment. Demand that each of these high crimes and abuses of office by Obama gets a full congressional investigation. Demand our media reports the truth. Report it for them. Tie the bastard up in congress, in the courts, in the media and in the court of public opinion. Demand that he be impeached and removed, then charged, tried, convicted and jailed!!

Protest and rally every chance we get!! Turn out like never before to vote straight conservative!!

Demand that we impeach and remove corrupt, treasonous, overreaching, abusive executives, constitution trampling judges and justices, and corrupt high level appointees at every level. Vote out all corrupt, crony capitalists from their elected posts. Recall the corrupt governors and other corrupt officeholders all across the land. Impeach, recall, investigate, charge, try and incarcerate the corrupt, constitution trampling, bribe taking crony capitalist bastards!!

I will not go to my maker with the blood of millions of innocent unborn children on my hands or vote for a man who would willingly and wantonly deprive me or my children of our God given liberty. I will not vote for or support an abortionist/liberal/progressive/statist like Mitt Romney. Period!!

Nope, FR has been over run by people who elected Romney in primaries because they ignored real conservatives and marched in lock step to the GOP establishment’s mantra of “only Romney can win”.
It’s time for Romneybots to take responsibility for electing BHO for another four years, because Romney is no different than BHO, as shown over and over and over again.
BHO campaign will probably be “why vote for Romney, he’s just like me”.

75
posted on 04/30/2012 2:15:37 PM PDT
by svcw
(If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)

Hoping someone steps forward or there becomes a consensus pro-life conservative (if there is such a thing) write-in candidate. But I assure you it will not be the abortionist/homosexualist/liberal/progressive/statist Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney would not attack people for being successful. He would not encourage the middle class to resent successful people, but instead would encourage them to learn from those who have been successful, and to seek opportunities from them.

So? Obama's going to keep doing that whether he's President or whether he's out of office on his multi-million dollar worldwide speaking tour or starting his own new talk show as the male Oprah.

81
posted on 04/30/2012 2:39:07 PM PDT
by JediJones
(From the makers of Romney, Bloomberg/Schwarzenegger 2016. Because the GOP can never go too far left.)

Most of Cain’s arguments claim Romney won’t do the very same things Bush did...stimulus spending, new entitlement programs, deficits. It’s nice and all not to raise taxes, but not when you’re the “cut taxes and spend” party, the same attitude that started driving us into debt after Newt’s balanced budgets were abandoned. Besides, Romney “closed tax loopholes” and “raised fees” in Massachusetts, so he raised taxes any way he could as long as he could find a way not to call it “raising taxes.” Sorry, Herman, it’s just not plausible that Romney wouldn’t do every one of those things. It’s what the Republican party wants and Romney showed in Massachusetts that he has no core values of his own to get in the way.

82
posted on 04/30/2012 2:44:03 PM PDT
by JediJones
(From the makers of Romney, Bloomberg/Schwarzenegger 2016. Because the GOP can never go too far left.)

A, it only takes a bit of looking and you will find on this site months back the cry:
“Romney is the only one who can beat BHO”,
“Romney may not be as conservative as we like but he can beat BHO”,
“the others don’t have a chance we must get behind Romney”.....and on and on....

Romney is a fraud.
He has not now or has he ever been a conservative.
His history both public and private is liberalism.
I will not vote for a liberal, regardless if they have an R by their name or not.
All candidates have their flaws, I understand that, I would vote for a flawed conservative over one who pretends to have no flaws and is a liberal.

84
posted on 04/30/2012 3:33:53 PM PDT
by svcw
(If one living cell on another planet is life, why isn't it life in the womb?)

Not going to say theyre now RINOs and I still like them a lot, but I am mighty disappointed to see them cave so easily....

I've got a lot of respect for your position, Jim. And I appreciate your thoughtful response; do you not think these people sincerely believe Romney would be better than Obama? I do. Cain's response wasn't a shuck and jive routine, it was a thoughtful response to the notion that we should continue to disdain the likely nominate, don't you think? I sincerely do, and it isn't because I hate conservatism or the Republic or because I am a party "hack"...and while I don't think Romney will be our Savior (there was only one of those!), it is because I remember the days of Nixon's wage-freezing and Carter's inflation and foreign policy failures and I see Obama doing a worse job than both of those guys times ten! :)

Reagan worked within the party structure to affect change, and I appreciate that notion and example.

I agree 100% with you that we should change things from the bottom up...but we also have a 2012 election coming in less than 200 days, and we'll probably have an electable choice between two men.

Staying out of the game hardly makes us players, doesn't it?

Just thought I'd respond, and thanks again for what you said...I know your words are expressed with passion.

Who said I’m staying out of the game? I outlined what we can do as TEA PARTY REBELS in my post. Vote straight conservative, retake our government, restore the balance of powers, impeach, recall, indict, convict the corrupt usurpers and traitors!!

We are not afraid of a political or constitutional fight!!

We do not surrender! We do not retreat! We reload!!

And also stated in no uncertain terms that I absolutely will not vote for an abortionist/homosexualist/liberal/progressive/statist. And there’s a period on the end of that statement. That position is non-negotiable and not open to debate. It is what it is.

I supported Cain, Perry and Newt in that order. I never supported Bachmann and was lukewarm about Santorum.

I loathe Romney but I refuse sit this election out just as I refused to stay home in 2008. Too much is on the line.

We cannot survive 4 more years of Obama.

I am not thrilled about Romney in the WH. There will be no donations, no bumper stickers, no yard signs, no rallies. I shall only cast my ballot.

If I am ever asked for whom I am voting for and why I will tell them the truth. I will vote for the Republican nominee because he is not Obama. I could not live with myself if my actions (or inactions) contributed to a second term for O.

We’re on the same page, then. I went to one McCain rally in 2008, which happened to be the one where he formally introduced Palin, but that was mainly because I already knew how damaging Obama would be.

Incremental progress toward conservatism isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary. Four years of WH and media venom have damaged the conservative brand too much to hope for a dramatic reversal, but we can make progress for 2016 and 2020.

From what I remember, he wanted the 9% enacted soon after election, and then the 16th Amendment was going to be “worked on” or something to that effect. I never liked the guy because of his pizza-style tax plan. Success should never, never ever be taxed.

97
posted on 04/30/2012 7:36:22 PM PDT
by wastedyears
(There can be only one.)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.